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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6667703" data-attributes="member: 6787503">I didn't say it was "just" built around FE, but to answer your questions: (1) The only reference to woodcraft in the text of the 1E Ranger can be found in this sentence, "Rangers are a sub-class of fighter who are adept at woodcraft, tracking, scouting, and infiltration and spying." Mostly this is nothing but flavor. As for actual, mechanical capabilities, only tracking and the ability to surprise and not be surprised more often could possibly be considered related to woodcraft, and neither depends on being in the woods or any other natural environment. So, not sure what you mean by "all this". (2) It was called "the Ranger" as an obvious reference to Aragorn. For the same reason, it was given tracking and proficiency with ESP-related magic items. It was an attempt, within the bounds of the rules of D&D, to create a class that resembled Aragorn, and not, as you seem to expect, some "woodsman archetype". Thus the D&D Ranger was born. You can argue that the class was unsuccessful in sufficiently representing an Aragorn-like figure. I certainly would. You could also argue that the FE feature, along with certain others (spellcasting for one), was clumsily cobbled on to the class without really having too much to do with Aragorn, or without much improving the resemblance. My opinion, however, is that at that point the D&D Ranger became its own thing, an amalgamation of all its parts. The question I've been trying to answer is what makes the D&D Ranger unique as a class. Its resemblance, or lack thereof, to literary characters and archetypes is pretty much irrelevant to that discussion. Sorry I've been so round about in making that point.I acknowledge that there seems to be a usually rather menacing archetype found in certain literature, particularly fairy-tales, that I would be tempted to call "the Huntsman". Bumppo may align with this, and I can certainly see it in Aragorn, particularly in his character establishment. Possibly related is this American idea of the frontiersman that Bumppo seems to embody, and that Aragorn may have inherited a portion of. These influences were distilled through Aragorn into the D&D Ranger and combined with rules that were created for Fighting-men, Magic-users, Clerics, and Thieves, from whence derives the ranger character-class archetype, a concept with limited applicability outside of FRPG discussions. It seems strange to me then to speak of a "ranger archetype" that embraces the literary and historic influences on the class, or at least some of them, but actually rejects the game-mechanics that made the class what it is.If I remember correctly, Grendel was universally despised. Beowulf wasn't just going out and killing random people to get famous. He needed to kill a hate-object.And yet he didn't use the same tactics with the dragon. If grappling was his go-to tactic for defeating monsters you'd think he'd use it in all cases, in lieu of any "special knowledge", that is.And yet he entered the lake. He left the overworld, the world of men, and descended alone into the world of monsters below the lake's surface. Now that I think of it, I might give Beowulf the Underdark as his favored terrain. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This is what I don't understand. You're giving primacy to the wood-craftiness of the "ranger class", but rejecting its favored enemy ability. It seems arbitrary when they are both part of the class. Besides, I wasn't presenting Perseus as a type of "the ranger". I was attempting to explain how I think FE could be used to express a character concept of a medusa slayer. To answer the question you've raised, however, FE is only associated with the Ranger's other skills because the class brings them together. It's part of what gives the D&D Ranger its particular flavor, which I think was my point to begin with.This is a matter of opinion. I see his return in that battle and his slaying of the dragon as a manifestation in the world of the heroic potential that otherwise he expresses by going into the West, or leaving the world entirely. It's a defining moment.I'm saying that every decision a character makes need not refer back to a single feature of its class, no matter how fundamental to the class that feature may be.Not sure about the "archetypal hunter", but you hear an actual hunter frequently referred to as a "deer hunter", a "duck hunter", or a "big-game hunter". Are there really people out there who are equally skilled at hunting everything, and if so do they excel at hunting a particular animal above the abilities of those who specialize?</blockquote>

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